Scientists debunk climate change myths

February 25, 2014
by Kanina Foss

Category 4-strength Cyclone Favio was closing the gap between Madagascar and mainland Africa on February 21, 2007, preparing to strike Mozambique in coming days. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite shows Favio stretched across the Mozambique Channel at 9:35 a.m. (local time) Wednesday morning. The outermost bands of clouds on the western side of the storm were already brushing the coast of Inhambane province in southern Mozambique. A thick ring of “boiling” clouds surrounds the eye of the storm. Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Wits University scientists have debunked two big myths around climate change by proving firstly, that despite predictions, tropical storms are not increasing in number. However, they are shifting, and South Africa could be at increased risk of being directly impacted by tropical cyclones within the next 40 years. Secondly, while global warming is causing frost to be less severe, late season frost is not receding as quickly as flowering is advancing, resulting in increased frost risk which will likely begin to threaten food security.

According to Jennifer Fitchett, a PhD student in the Wits School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies (GAES), there has been an assumption that increasing sea surface temperatures caused by global warming is causing an increase in the number of tropical cyclones.

But looking at data for the south-west Indian Ocean over the past 161 years, Fitchett and co-author Professor Stefan Grab, also from GAES, confirmed the results of previous studies which have found that there has been no increase in the number of tropical cyclones and that much of the perceived change in numbers is a result of improved storm detection methods. "From 1940, there was a huge increase in observations because of aerial reconnaissance and satellite imagery," she says.

The big surprise came when Fitchett and Grab looked at where storms have been happening. As the oceans have warmed and the minimum sea surface temperature necessary for a cyclone to occur (26.5 degrees Celsius) has been moving further south, storms in the south-west Indian Ocean have been moving further south too.

Most cyclones hit Madagascar and do not continue to Mozambique, and those which hit Mozambique develop to the North of Madagascar, but in the past 66 years there have been seven storms which have developed south of Madagascar and hit Mozambique head-on. More notable is that four of them occurred in the past 20 years. "This definitely looks like the start of a trend," says Fitchett.

South Africa is already feeling the effects of this shift. The cyclones that hit southern Mozambique cause heavy rain and flooding in Limpopo. But according to Fitchett, the trend becomes even more concerning when one considers that the 26.5 degrees Celsius temperature line (isotherm) has been moving south at a rate of 0.6 degrees latitude per decade since 1850. "At current rates we could see frequent serious damage in South Africa by 2050," she says.

In a separate study, Fitchett and co-authors looked at different types of citrus – oranges, lemons and tangerines – in two cities in Iran, where the existence of heritage gardens meant data were easily available. They found that while global warming is causing the fruit trees to flower as much as a month earlier than 50 years ago, which is a very rapid shift, changes in late season frost are not happening nearly as quickly.

Before 1988 there were zero to three days between peak flowering and the last day of frost in Kerman, Iran; since then, the number has increased to zero to 15.

"The layman's assumption is that as temperatures get warmer, there will be less frost. But although the severity of the frost has decreased, the last day of frost hasn't been receding as quickly as the advances in flowering. The result is that frost events are increasingly taking place during flowering and damaging the flowers. No flowers equals no fruit," says Fitchett.

According to the study, at current rates, it will take only 70 years before it becomes a certainty that frost will occur during peak flowering in Kerman. Already, since 1988, frost has occurred during peak flowering in 41% of the years.

"Iran is a top citrus producer but they don't export and we don't yet have data on whether there has been an impact on their citrus yields. We think that if there hasn't already been a huge impact, there soon will be," says Fitchett.

South Africa also produces a lot of citrus – for local and international consumption – and the country has been experiencing similar climate warming to Iran. South African farmers are not yet recording the flowering dates of their crops which makes it hard to repeat the study locally, but according to Fitchett, the threat is of concern.

Fitchett and Grab's paper titled: A 66-year tropical cyclone record for south-east Africa: temporal trends in a global context was published in the International Journal of Climatology in February 2014 and evolved out of work Fitchett undertook during her honours degree at Wits.

Her second paper, co-authored with Grab, Dave Thompson (South African Environmental Observation Network) and Reza Rowshan (University of Golestan, Iran), titled: Increasing frost risk associated with advanced citrus flowering dates in Kerman and Shiraz, Iran: 1960–2010, was published in the International Journal of Biometeorology in January 2014 and evolved out of work she did during her masters degree at Wits.

According to Grab, who supervised Fitchett's research, there are many questionable reports by scientists, governments and the media on climate change. "We are on a quest to test and challenge such reporting, based on the analysis of quality data available to us. The work of Fitchett and other postgraduate students at Wits University is of the highest international quality and bodes well to a future generation of South African climate and environmental change scientists."

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You remaining "believers" are so eager to "believe" that you don't even know what the scientific consensus is you are "believing" in and agreeing with. Find us one scientist that "believes" beyond; "could be". YOU can't "believe" more than science does. Why don't you just vote Republican if you are so anxious to fear monger our children. Prove us former "believers" wrong; just what is there to debate or "believe" when not one IPCC warning "believes" beyond; "could be" unlike how they can say smoking "will" cause cancer, evolution is "proven" and comet hits are "inevitable"? Now you know.

Shameless wingnut denier parrot mememine69 aka Paul Merrifield, aka Al Bore, aka David Nutzuki, aka Former Believer has arrived. Google these and despair at the stupid.Obviously, doesn't want to insure his house until is on fire.As we've only got one planet and no insurance company could fix it, it's best not to break it.I'll go with what the science says:Climate change has happened, it is happening, we are the cause, it is bad, it will get worse, but we have a chance to stop it from becoming catastrophic if we act now.

There are many manifestations of the alleged climate change. Why do they ("researchers") focus on things which are difficult and error prone to evaluate (hurricanes shifted south, fish migrated north) and ignore effects that are much easier to measure (temperatures by ARGO network, sea ice cover)? They are not implying that counting hurricanes is more robust than reading buoy sensor data?

TegiriNenashi,The point is to gain a better understanding of everything about climate. The implication of new knowledge is rarely predictable, to understand something complicated every detail needs to be examined and understood.

ryggesogn2,Look at the night pictures of Earth to see the impact of humans on the night sky. That didn't exist a hundred years ago. What is special about humans is we are continually altering the environment to support an exponentially growing population that could never have been supported in our pre-civilation state.

The US alone has 30,000 nuclear warheads. With that we could "break" the environment in less than 24 hours. Hubris is not thinking we can mess up a planet which is finite in size, it is thinking we can continually change it's surface and chemistry without caution and expect there to be no consequences.

Its good to see research validating, and in this case invalidating, assumptions. This is why science works better than any alternative.

Ok let me get this. Every Proof for AGW that we have been told would happen hasn't, but looking at other things we didn't think happen which have happened proves AGW.

In other words if 2 plus 2 is suppose to equal 5 in the AGW world, once proven that 2 plus 2 is actually equal to 4, then now it 3 plus 3 is now equal to 5. Once the 3 plus 3 is no longer 5, something else will be used to prove AGW.

We are quite capable of breaking the biosphere, and working on it as if there was no tomorrow, and will probably continue until there is no tomorrow.Climate change is only one of the headless horsemen - we already broke the Arctic, cut down half the forests, emptied and poisoned the oceans, increased CO₂ by 40% and causing the sixth mass extinction.Just 1 tiny example of millions - there is enough mercury from coal power stations and gold mining in a 180kg bigeye tuna to make 124 compact fluorescent lamps. Go figure. http://en.wikiped..._in_fish

Those that continue to deny human-caused climate change are motivated by money and ideology. That is all it is about - profit before sanity, privatising profit, externalizing costs.

Look at the night pictures of Earth to see the impact of humans on the night sky. That didn't exist a hundred years ago

What IS the impact on the night sky?

With that we could "break" the environment in less than 24 hours

But the earth will not be broken.

The AGW solution is to return the planet to the equivalent of the night sky over North Korea by using the same process as the North Koreans.The ONLY way for humans to survive is to thrive by innovating, creating wealth, adapting and becoming more efficient. Why didn't AGWites take this path? Answer, because they are led by socialists like Paul Ehrlich.

And, again, Maggy can't answer why AGWites chose to pursue a socialist, centrally planned way to 'save the planet' instead of following innovation, technology and free markets that can create the wealth needed to be more efficient and have the wealth lift billions out of poverty and stop burning wood, dung and charcoal.The socialists DO understand and know the power of market based solutions since they attempted to create an artificial market for carbon. But they fail to understand that real, efficient, effective markets emerge and are not created by state sanctions.

And, again, Maggy can't answer why AGWites chose to pursue a socialist, centrally planned way to 'save the planet' instead of following innovation, technology and free markets that can create the wealth needed to be more efficient and have the wealth lift billions out of poverty and stop burning wood, dung and charcoal.

riggsuckn'

Allow me to complete your quote from above...it should continue to read thusly:

...while using the economic and political power afforded through this unprecedented concentration of wealth to eliminate competiton, establish de facto monopolies/industry blocs, and hump each and every living soul on the planet to the grave with outdated, dirty technology whose production and use is entirely exploitative of human and nature alike, stifles all innovation for cleaner/cheaper options, and to date has utterly failed to lift still billions more out of dire poverty.

why AGWites chose to pursue a socialist, centrally planned way to 'save the planet'

By your definition of socialist, which considers the USA to be a socialist state. And the reason why the "socialist" approach dominates is because the solution you (and your fellow travelers?) propose is both politically impossible and more detrimental to innovation and economic activity than heavy regulation.

instead of following innovation, technology and free markets that can create the wealth needed to be more efficient

Your accounting of wealth does not seem to include ecosystem services. Markets consistently underprice that, perhaps because future generation who will suffer the loss don't have an influence on price now.

socialists [...] fail to understand that real, efficient, effective markets emerge and are not created by state sanctions.

Do read "5000 years of Debt". You may find the origin of markets is a bit more complicated than you think.

Depends on your time frame. If you have enough money, say you are in the top 0.5% globally, and think only of the next few decades, you have a good chance of a comfortable life. And in 50 million years, it will take a paleontologist to see signs of the mass extinction we are having now. In that sense, the planet will be fine. It's if you think more than a few decades ahead and are concerned about not only the richest people that you get concerned.

So Cali believes that socialism created the wealth and prosperity that has lifted billions out of poverty in the past 100 years?Please show me the evidence.What socialist politburo created the processes that reduced the cost and improved the quality of kerosene to the point that millions could afford to buy it?What socialist politburo created the electric lamp?What socialist politburo created the assembly line?A socialist politburo in USSR hired a capitalist (Fred Koch) to improve the efficiency of their oil refining process.

"According to a just-published World Bank report, the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 per day—or its local equivalent—has plummeted from 52 percent of the global population in 1981 to 22 percent in 2008. ""Moreover, this escape from poverty happens while the global population continues to grow. Doomsday prophets who warned about a ticking "population bomb" have not been vindicated, to say the least. Global warming messiahs, beware: human ingenuity proves able to cope with the predicaments of Mother Nature.""Global growth, thus, is not a miracle, but the outcome of sound economic policies. This confirms what free-market economists have been writing since 1776, when Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations: economic policies based on entrepreneurship, open borders, and competition, prove successful."http://www.city-j...9gs.html

"There is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm, according to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who testified in front of a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Moore argued that the current argument that the burning of fossil fuels is driving global warming over the past century lacks scientific evidence. He added that the Earth is in an unusually cold period and some warming would be a good thing.""Moore, a Canadian, helped found the environmental activist group Greenpeace in the 1970s. He left the group after they began to take on more radical positions. He has since been a critic of radical environmentalism and heads up the group Ecosense Environmental in Vancouver, Canada.

So Cali believes that socialism created the wealth and prosperity that has lifted billions out of poverty in the past 100 years?[......]A socialist politburo in USSR hired a capitalist (Fred Koch) to improve the efficiency of their oil refining process.

and

"According to a just-published World Bank report, the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 per day—or its local equivalent—has plummeted from 52 [,,,,,,,]"Global growth, thus, is not a miracle, but the outcome of sound economic policies. This confirms what free-market economists have been writing since 1776, when Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nati

and

"There is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm, according to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who testified in front of a Senate committee on Tuesday[.......]

Bonia

"According to a just-published World Bank report, the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 per day—or its local equivalent—has plummeted from 52 percent of the global population in 1981 to 22 percent in 2008. "$1.25 in 1981 is $3.00 in 2008 dollars. the percent of people living on under $3.00 a day in 2008 is 58%. so, fewer people had equivalent buying power. from now on, do all of your calculations in mg of gold instead, It'll allow you to see when you're making someone else's point for them.

Fair capitalism is good.Ripping people off or sh1tting in someone else's soup for profit and expecting others to pay to clean it up is what I have a problem with.Get your CO₂ off my land and back where it came from.

Bonia

capitolism is NOT responsible for any of the current prosperity no matter how you measure prosperity.

Literally all of the things you attribute to capitolism (which has been the monitary system present in all of recorded human history after direct barter) are actually due to the discovery of abundant hydrocarbon fuel which is the equivalent to tens of billions of slaves working around the clock, the harnessing of electricity and it's general understanding which allows computing power equal to billions and billions of servants, experts and storage facilities worth of data processing and storage, and both of those are directly due to a very obsessive minority which has embraced the scientific method for general understanding. while socialism isn't the scheme I subscribe to, it would have had a hell of a better chance if it didnt have a defacto enemy in greedy, wealthy, capito-dictators.

"It was Adam Smith who noticed that mercantilism was not a force of development and change, but a regressive system that was keeping the world from advancing. His ideas for a free market opened the world to capitalism. ""Industrial tycoons were the first people to amass their wealth in their lifetimes, outstripping both the landed nobles and many of the moneylending/banking families. For the first time in history, common people could have hopes of becoming wealthy without being born into it.""Industrial capitalism was the first system to benefit all levels of society rather than just the noble class."http://www.invest...tory.aspWhy do socialists want a return to feudalism? Is it because they believe they should be the nobility?

Then you prefer living in a grass and mud hut scratching in the dirt hoping to raise enough food to survive.what evidence do you have that these are the only two options?... the only realm of reference you have is a world based solely on the supremacy of capitolism, exacting unquestioning destruction on anyone who questions.technological utopianism. Abundant hydrocarbon fuel had been discovered thousands of years ago.wrong- internal combustion engines have only been practical for 100 years. and don't try to spin wood or whale oil into 'abundant hydrocarbon fuel'..

"This didn't occur until capitalism has allowed a level of prosperity to fund scientists."

wrong- scientists are largely unmotivated by monitary gain. There are abundant examples of scientists who's efforts were based on passion and furtherment of understanding rather than profit. ptolemy, wright brothers, tesla, turing, einstein, planck... Many are even vindicated for their progress like newton.

Do they like to eat?If they have to plant crops using an ox to pull a wooden plow, when can they do science?

Wright Bros wanted to make money. Tesla needed to make money as he lived in a fancy hotel and needed the profits from Westinghouse to pay for his new inventions.

Without capitalism and the division of labor it brings, who will raise the cattle for the butcher? Who will plant the wheat for the baker? Without such self interested division of labor rewarded by profit in a capitalist system, what will be your quality of life?Who will dig and build the sewers, the running water for the flush toilets to keep everyone healthy?Rome had running water and thousands of slave to build and maintain it. Without electric motors, diesel and gasoline engines, how will any thing but mud huts be efficiently constructed?

Without capitalism and the division of labor it brings, who will raise the cattle for the butcher? Who will plant the wheat for the baker? Without such self interested division of labor rewarded by profit in a capitalist system, what will be your quality of life?Who will dig and build the sewers, the running water for the flush toilets to keep everyone healthy?

Seriously? The Social Division of Labour? Do you even understand what you are quoting from?

Division of labor is not The Socialist Division Labor."The result of a division of labor is an expansion of the productivity of labor through specialization. As each individual commits himself to a specialized task such as agriculture, he acquires a higher level of skill at that task and can soon outperform in eight hours, for example, what eight other men could collectively accomplish in one hour each. By avoiding having to gather grains for an hour each day, the other men would likewise raise their productivity in whatever tasks they chose for their specialized labor. Without such a division, it would be difficult if not impossible for long-range productive action to take place."http://www.clemso...bor.html

"The unique advantage of the division of labor can only flourish under a system of capitalism, with its protection of individual rights. Because the division of labor depends on individuals choosing to forego current diversified self-sufficient production in the expectation of future trade for divided production, each individual must be certain that he will in fact be able to make that exchange. The system of property and contract rights instituted by capitalism is the means by which this long-range behavior is protected. In the absence of the rule of law and the protection of individual rights, the division of labor economy would collapse. If a man were not certain that his specialized production of computers, for example, would be safe from forced redistribution and that his daily needs for food could be purchased freely in the market instead of doled out by decree, he would never choose to specialize and agree to divide his labor."http://www.clemso...ivisiono

(1) It is the most obvious consequence of a warming planet. That tropical storms would move further from the tropics.

(2) Storm severity is caused by temperature gradient. Therefore It is less obvious that storms would become more severe or more frequent. In fact it is not obvious at all and would probably be a function of the layout of ocean relative to land surface.

The climate scam is one of the most outrageous schemes for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich ever devised. Warmists may well be predominantly socialists but in reality they are the 'useful idiots' of some of the very the worst examples of capitalism out of control. Namely Goldman Sachs who invented cap and trade And ENRON who created the nonsensical notion that a trace gas essential for life on Earth is actually a pollutant.http://quidsapio....d-trade/http://www.forbes...ng-down/

Ken Lay from Enron lobbied GHW Bush to attend Rio and push for the Kyoto treaty so Enron could 1) get into the CO2 credit business and 2) build more natural gas pipelines and sell more natural gas.It's amusing how the socialist AGWites don't care to talk about this.

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